CDN Welcomes Timberly Morrison
Last August I joined the Cisco Developer Network team as a Go-to-Market Programs Manager. Since then, I’ve learned lots about the network behind the network. We all know about the network as the platform to help our customers solve their most important business problems, but what about our rich developer ecosystems and the important roles that they play?
Enter the Cisco Developer Network (CDN), an industry-recognized developer and technology partner program that helps more than 110,000 developers and 700 partners worldwide deliver differentiated value to our customers. CDN provides a wide variety of tools and resources available to developers through a self-serve community, partnering activities and consulting and development services.
CDN is especially relevant for customers looking to tap into the expanding value of the network through smart solutions and connected architectures. As a part of the Advanced Services team, CDN helps customers get more value from their existing network investment through value-added compatible solutions offered by CDN partners. Customers take advantage of the innovative enterprise-grade, business-ready solutions to achieve productivity, and strategic returns on their technology investment.
Hans Hwang, vice president for Advanced Services told me “Cisco is on a transformational journey to evolve the value of the Intelligent Network through Smart Solutions and Connected Architectures. To do this, we need to cultivate a vibrant ecosystem of third party products and services which are relevant to our customers. CDN enables Cisco to engage and nurture a broad developer ecosystem, from in-house staff to large ISVs, focused on delivering differentiated value with Cisco, ultimately driving customer stickiness and acceleration of pull-through revenue.”
As Cisco expands strategies to build open developer platforms around Smart Services, Emerging Solutions, and other software products that will require a vibrant developer community, CDN will become even more relevant.
A Closer Look at CDN
There are three pillars to CDN:
1) a self-serve developer community,
2) a partnering program, and
3) high touch consulting and development services for customers.
The self-serve developer community is the place to go for all developers to find Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), Software Developer Kits (SDKs) and supporting technical collateral across all Cisco technologies. They can leverage 118 different Cisco technology centers to develop compelling business solutions to meet new, dynamic customer needs. CDN also features a partnering program for those companies that have a “relationship” with Cisco in order to further the Cisco value proposition for our customers. The consulting and development services team provides high level development services to top -tier customers who want to extend Cisco products and/or integrate with other products in their environment. This team also provides fee-based consulting services to CDN partners to help them more rapidly respond to our customers’ business needs.
CDN also offers comprehensive go-to-market planning programs and tools to help partners navigate and benefit from Cisco sales channels. One of CDN’s leading assets is the recently launched
CDN Marketplace which features more than 900 Cisco-based solutions available from 365 CDN partners. Leveraging best practices from consumer online stores, the
CDN Marketplace offers customers and resellers a fast and simple way to search for solutions that meet their specific business needs.
CDN offers Cisco customers a broad range of business relevant third party products with tested Cisco compatibility. There are more than 1,160 Cisco compatible products available today.
Developers can leverage Cisco’s messaging and branding while promoting their unique value proposition enabled by the Cisco Developer Network. They have the ability to broaden market reach through program logos and promotion in the
CDN Marketplace.
Feedback from developers has been strong. Christine Dover, Research Director with IDC Software Channels Research said, “We continue to be impressed with the
Cisco Developer Network program.” “CDN is comparable to other industry leading programs. With ongoing commitment and responsible investing, Cisco has the potential to accelerate share growth & business transformation fueled by innovative third party solutions.”
It’s been a thought-provoking couple of months in my new role. I’ve got more to learn and I’m excited to do so. If you’d like to learn more about CDN and the go-to-market programs, I’d love to hear from you.
I’ll be at the CDN Developers Forum in London during Cisco Live in January 2013. I look forward to meeting many of you there.
To receive news and updates about CDN please follow us on Twitter at @cisco_developer.
Timberly Morrison
Program Manager
Cisco Developer Network
